Chapter 1 - Brain the source of endless power

Nature
has created many marvelous wonders. The galaxies, the solar system, the moon,
the oceans, the volcanoes, the birds, the animals are some of nature’s finest
creations but none of its creations is as marvelous and complex as the human
brain. The human brain is what differentiates the humans from all other
creatures around us. It is that computer which knows no limits. During our
journey we will learn the art of breaking the self imposed limits on this marvelous
organ.

The
brain is the most complex creation of Mother Nature. In terms of complexity of
its working no other natural or man made object comes even close to it. Such is
the enigma of human brain that scientists know more about the stars in our
galaxy than the workings of human brain. Still through the use of modern
technology they have tried to decipher the way brain works. What they have come
out with is just the tip of the iceberg but it is enough to sink the Titanic of
our existing beliefs about the brain.

Brain
is actually a complex organ that is built up of large number cells of different
types of which neurons play a primary role in information processing and
intelligence. There are billions of neurons in our brain. Estimates of neurons
in our brain vary from 10 billion to 100 billion. A neuron itself is quite a
complex entity composed of different parts. Most neurons are connected to
thousands of other neurons. What this essentially means is that there are
trillions of connections between the neurons of our brain. Another interesting
fact is that all the connections are not of the same strength. Some are strong,
others are weak, some are slow and some are fast. It is due to these facts that
brain continues to pose the greatest challenge to scientists.

Most
computers store data in binary format and are capable of processing just a few
bytes of information per processing cycle. Even though most modern day
computers can achieve speeds of millions of processing cycles per second but
this pales in comparison to the parallel processing power of the human brain.
The processing power of human brain could be understood by one simple analogy.
Imagine that the world has 10 billion people. Also imagine that all these
people are simultaneously talking to thousands of other people every single
second. This is how your brain processes the data.

A
misconception that people have about the brain is that some people have more
processing power and some less. Leaving a few mentally challenged people who
certain forms of brain deficiency most people have enough processing power to
be an Einstein, Newton
or Shakespeare. What is lacking in most people is the software for using this
sophisticated hardware that god has gifted to us. As most of us who have used
computers know that even the best computing hardware is only as good as the
software that is inside it similarly is the case with our brain. A renowned
memory expert always exclaims that there is no such thing as a good or bad
memory. There is only the concept of a trained and untrained memory.

Like
any complex system that needs to be operated in a certain way, there are
certain techniques which have been discovered by scientists, psychologists and
wise people over the ages to enhance the effectiveness of our brains. The saddest
thing is that most of the schools around the world don’t teach this to
students. Sometimes parents and teachers are of a view that some children are
slow learners and academically weak. All problems relating to slow learning,
boring learning and academic weakness can be tackled using the wisdom that has
been accumulated on this front over the ages.

In
the current world things are changing quite rapidly. Even the people who are in
the business world sometimes feel frustrated by their lack of ability to grasp
things. What they don’t know is that there brains are capable of dealing with
the challenges of the 21st century the only thing they have to do is
to unleash the latent potential of there brain. The techniques for doing so are
not as complex as rocket science, you just have to devote some of your time
with an open minded approach. There is no age barrier in unleashing the brain’s
power. A 5 year old child can do it as well as a 70 year old man.

There
are perfectly ordinary people who have been able to increase their brain’s
ability to compute numbers, memorize information, read information, creatively
think on issues as well as become more positive in their outlook and feel more
relaxed. Scientific literature on human brain is filled with instances of
people who were found to be having normal brains but above normal ability to
memorize, compute values and read information. In fact, once the brain of the
winner of a renowned memory competition was analyzed to find the reason for his
superior mental abilities. Scientists were surprised to find nothing extra
ordinary in his brain’s biology. They were then told by the winner about the
use of memory techniques to memorize things.

I
myself can vouch for this. From my childhood people around me have associated
me with extra ordinary mental abilities. I was able to calculate numbers and
remember certain things better than others since my school days. What I also
knew since childhood deep inside my heart was that I was not having any kind of
extra ordinary brain. It was initially limited to just a few simple techniques
which I stumbled upon in the formative years of my life. As I grew my desire to
be the best took me to a large number of books that covered one aspect of
mental growth or the other. What I found out was that incidentally during my
formative years when concepts like addition, subtraction, multiplication,
division were being taught to me, I had started using certain techniques which
help in performing mental math calculations. Similarly was the case with
reading. Some of the techniques propounded by some leading reading experts were
already being used by me since childhood without even knowing about them. So
was the case with memory. Thus to have extra ordinary mental abilities you do
not have to have some unique kind of a brain. Your brain is powerful enough to
give you outstanding results.

People
around the world, who have been trained to use the techniques which we will be
discussing later, can vouch the increase in there mental abilities as a result
of training there brain. Ability to remember hundreds of facts and faces,
reading a couple of thousand words per minute, multiply 10 digit numbers and
think creatively in unheard directions is something that lots of people have
developed through actively training there brain these techniques.

I
would just like to advice you that the only thing stopping your brain’s power
is your thinking that you are ordinary or that possessing superior mental
abilities is just matter of possessing great luck. Any person and every person
irrespective of his cast, creed, color, education or age can increase his/her
mental abilities.